Saturday, July 1, 2017

Bad, Good, and Nice news.

Every
time when I write a new post, I’ll promise myself not to wait too long before
writing another, then, just a few farts further, to discover yet another
month passed. Oops. Well, I had some excuses for a change.

Sick Son

Bad news
first, our little boy was/is(?) sick. Well, not that he felt or even realized,
but in all of a sudden his legs and arms were covered with small bruises. Now
of course, children without scratches is like Teenage Mutant Hero Turtles
without pizza. But when I detected tiny red needle-like “Petechial”, my heart
froze. Knowing a young girl that went to the dentist with somewhat bloody gums… she
didn’t live another year, because those bloody gums were the result of Leukaemia.
Googling for tiny red dots didn’t bring up cheerful results either, although
Google is probably a terrible doctor when it comes to medical advice. According
to the internet, I have gang-green, brain eating amoebas, and require immediate exorcism as well. Still,
when the real doctor called only just a few hours after his blood was sampled,
telling to go to the hospital NOW for a possible blood transfusion, my world stopped spinning. Not my two year old innocent boy, not like that.

Well,
results aren’t final yet, but I think we can call ourselves lucky with the news
it’s most probably just “ITP” – a blood disorder that can lead to excessive
bleeding due the lack of platelets. Apparently little kids can catch a certain
virus (especially when it’s getting hot again, like now here), then having
their bodies react improperly. In 85% this is just temporarily, and the body
will fully recover. In the other case, it can become chronic. Which sucks,
because it basically means our son may have to wear a helmet the rest of his
live, and learn chess instead of cage-fighting. When I asked if our son can
still drink whiskey, that was a negative too. Then again, I remember having a
kid with ITP on the sort-of Scouts. And now, 17 years, lot’s of karate kicks
and barrels of beer later, he still lives.

But!
Just in case you stumbled on this page while Googling for sudden bruises or petechial
on your child, remember what I said about internet being a bad advisor. Just go
to the Doctor. Now.

Anyhow,
so basically we’re waiting now if he indeed has, or had, ITP (and not some other much
scarier disease), and if he will heal from it. In the meanwhile, he has 24-hour
YouTube duty (normally I give them a 1-hour maximum). No jumping off the couch,
no running in the garden, no fighting with his big sister. Poor little dude.

-update
(2 weeks later)

Other blood
tests were positive (and I mean in a good way, not in a Doctor way). He still
needs at least one check within a few months, but it seems everything is fine, as his blood levels went back normal quick.
Thank God. But as I’m typing this, I just saw a news snippet of Michael Bublé
(you probably know him from the radio); his three year old son Noah is
diagnosed with cancer. And just looking at a few photo’s on TV, the little
fellow looks almost identical to our son. Makes you realize how lucky we are,
but it also gives me a slightly better understanding of families that weren’t
blessed with such good news. Michael, I know you don’t read game-programming
blogs of some unimportant dude at the other side of the world, but I wish you,
your wife, Noah, and his big sister all the luck of the world with this. And
that also goes for all you other anonymous friends. Kids shouldn’t be sick. Kids
shouldn’t be blown up at concerts. Kids shouldn’t wash up on a beach. Kids
shouldn’t see war. Kids should play, learn, love, and be loved. And live.

Amateur Architects

The
brighter news then. I’ve also been busy with drawing blueprints. But not for
some gloomy Tower22 apartment, covered in dust and slime. But a house –my house
(covered in dust and slime). Yes, time to move to another house, so why not
trying to build a new one, at our own taste? And I must say, even though level
design is not my talent, all that game “experience” certainly helped in some
ways. I mean, we have visited treehouses in Zelda, pirate huts in Monkey
Island, Western taverns in Red Dead Redemption, Maya temples in Tomb Raider, Zombie
infested mansions, mushroom houses in the Smurfs, floating or underwater bars
in Bioshock. Oh, and how can I forget, I must have built a hundred homes in The
Sims. I most definitely borrowed some creative inspiration from the wonderful
world of games.

Only
problem is that those ideas are often a bit expensive… or just completely
impossible. I didn’t get permission for my basement laboratory, and the
architect said it’s not possible to make a house on top of a crawling titan named
Cronos. Bummer.

Concept sketches were rejected by the town community, exceeding the 11 meter height limit.

Tower22 - Getting the Playable Demo Playable

In the
meanwhile, there was some Tower22 time as well. I’m filling the gaps and bugs
so the game-demo can be “played”, with a beginning and an end. Then one of the
guys who helped me in the past as well, will have a look, and see what we can
do to turn this demo into something real. Either that means working very hard
on creating (quite a lot) textures, models and sounds. Or… maybe we should take
a turn, and simplify things instead. I wish I invented the endless Silent Hill
corridor demo, because that must have been damn easy (asset-production-wise,
not twisted-mind-wise)! If resources are few, maybe the current demo is too big
/ ambitious.

Then
again, I feel just showing a few eerie rooms won’t cover the game properly.
“Unfortunately”, the game is all about slow terror, not in-your-face blood
splatter and constantly pumping adrenaline. Which means even a demo requires
some breathing room to develop itself.

Major
problem are those pesky graphics. They got too good. And even if I would be
able to keep up programming/engine/shader wise, it still takes an army of
artists. Not a surprise most Indy games took an alternative “Retro” path.
Characters made of cubes and sticks, 8-bit pixel graphics, 2D platformers, and
so on. Yet I think that won’t really work for a game like Tower22. It’s about
showing you a claustrophobic skyscraper that gets stranger and stranger. I
don’t think I can reach that effect visually with Super Nintendo sprites, cartoony
looks, or 3D rooms without detail.

But what
I could do however… just like one of my great inspirators Resident Evil did… is
switching back to fixed camera’s. Oh dear, NO! Drunken tank controls, not able
to look further than 4 meters, six seconds to rotate 180 degrees, seven seconds
to open a door, NO! Well, ironically often the same people are complaining
about the lack of horror in modern (Resident Evil) titles. Think about it.
Would the original Resident Evil still be scary if you could see the zombie
hiding behind a plant right even before entering a new room? Would the game
still be difficult if you could headpop every, slow-shuffling, corpse from a
safe distance? Would you still poop your pants if you can sprint away quickly
when a mutated one-legged ape is trying to chase you? I never felt the Resident
Evil controls or camera as something annoying. More like a challenge that makes
the game scarier. But ok, opinions differ of course. And RE7 was pretty good as
well, with full 3D (even Virtual Reality!) controls.

Unless using fixed camera's or laying dead on the floor, you won't enjoy this"toddler" perspective.

Whether
you agree or not, a more solid fact is that fixed cameras can safe work.
Another ROCKsolid fact is that Tower22 won’t succeed, unless I either get that
army of artists, or give in some fancy 3D graphics a bit. See, the problem with
full-3D is that every inch and every corner has to look good, whereas with
fixed camera’s, you don’t even have to model a ceiling in case it’s out of
sight. You decide the cool shots, and just focus on that. And if the camera is
truly fixed, you can even cheat with Photoshop, drawing an overlay that holds
details that require a lot of sweat to model / bumpMap / glossMap / … Certainly
in a horror game where unrealism may prevail, 2D drawing can give a lot of
freedom.

I’m not
saying T22 will go that route. One of the downsides is that you will need a
nicely animated 3D character in return, and yes, I reckon, it doesn’t matter if
I’m charmed by fixed camera’s and clumsy controls, if the rest of the world
isn’t. Anyhow, that’s why we’ll be looking on how to proceed with this demo;
Beautify or Simplify. But first I’ll need to make sure he can actually play and
finish the demo without falling through floors, getting stuck in too illogical
puzzles, or getting bored in too unfinished environments! And fortunately, today I finally saw the End-Credits (of the Demo at least)... showing only one familiar name so far... Need more!